In Acts of Meaning (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990, pp. 96-97), Jerome Bruner writes When there is a breakdown in a culture…it can usually be traced to one of several things. The first is a deep disagreement about what constitutes the ordinary and canonical in life and what the exceptional and divergent….this we know inContinue reading “Jerome Bruner On Cultures That ‘Breakdown’”
Tag Archives: culture
On Being An Educated Philistine
I’m an uncultured bumpkin with little taste for the finer things in life. My list of failures is long and undistinguished. I do not like opera: God knows, I’ve tried; I’ve attended a few performances–thanks to some free tickets sent my way by discerning friends and culture consumers–but no dice, it didn’t catch. I cannotContinue reading “On Being An Educated Philistine”
Lionel Trilling As Philosopher Of Culture
In Freud and The Crisis of our Culture, Lionel Trilling writes: The idea of culture, in the modern sense of the word, is a relatively new idea. It represents a way of thinking about our life in society which developed concomitantly with certain ways of conceiving the self. Indeed, our modern idea of culture may beContinue reading “Lionel Trilling As Philosopher Of Culture”
No, Shmuel Rosner, Jews Should Not Keep Their Politics Out Of Passover
Shmuel Rosner suggests we should keep Passover apolitical and disdains the new Seders that reconfigure the Haggadah: In some ways, new readings of the Haggadah are a blessing. They take an ancient text and make it relevant. They make it easier for disconnected Jews to find meaning in the Passover Seder. They enable a contemporaryContinue reading “No, Shmuel Rosner, Jews Should Not Keep Their Politics Out Of Passover”
‘Silence’ And Shūsaku Endō’s Christianity
Shūsaku Endō‘s Silence is a remarkable religious novel, one whose close reading and discussion in a philosophy classroom pays rich dividends. This week marks the concluding sessions of my Philosophical Issues in Literature class’ discussion of Endō’s novel; I can enthusiastically recommend it–in whole or in part–for use in classes on epistemology and philosophy of religion.Continue reading “‘Silence’ And Shūsaku Endō’s Christianity”
Chaim Potok’s ‘The Chosen’: Talking About Religion, Identity, And Culture In A Philosophy Classroom
Last week, the students in this semester’s edition of my Philosophical Issues in Literature class began reading and discussing Chaim Potok‘s The Chosen. (We have just concluded our discussions of Chapters 1-5 i.e., Book One, which details the initial encounters between Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter, the book’s central protagonists.) I had not read theContinue reading “Chaim Potok’s ‘The Chosen’: Talking About Religion, Identity, And Culture In A Philosophy Classroom”
The Subway Car’s Daily Dose Of Culture
My train ride into Manhattan today reminded me that yesterday’s lament about the possible lack of adequate ‘cultural consumption’ in my life in this city was sorely missing one aspect of my urban experience: the culture that this city’s residents experience and ‘live’ by the mere fact of being in this city. This morning, IContinue reading “The Subway Car’s Daily Dose Of Culture”
Peter Gay On Bourgeois Insecurities (And Mine)
In Pleasure Wars: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, (WW Norton, New York, 1998) Peter Gay writes: Only the most determined could gather up the leisure and the energy after a hard week’s toil, or for that matter the money, to haunt museums, or follow compositions in the concert hall with a score, let alone travelContinue reading “Peter Gay On Bourgeois Insecurities (And Mine)”
Cultural Associations Do Not Add Up
In reviewing Jonathan Lethem‘s Dissident Gardens (“Leftists in Jeopardy“, New York Review of Books, April 2014), Michael Greenberg writes: Lethem’s impulse to display his knowingness, his “vernacular” expertise, as he calls it, his belief that “were’ surrounded by signs [and] our imperative is to ignore none of them engenders a narrative noise that drowns out theContinue reading “Cultural Associations Do Not Add Up”
Theater As Instruction Manual For Domestic Strife
In Benjamin Kunkel‘s new play Buzz, a central character, Tom, holds forth on theater–he says “something interesting”: TOM: The theater has a very ironic relationship to domestic life, don’t you think? Because what’s been the main preoccupation, for more than a hundred years? I’m thinking Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Pinter…About the biggest theme is the horror ofContinue reading “Theater As Instruction Manual For Domestic Strife”
Samir Chopra 